Mid summer

 Technically early July is not mid summer, but it certainly is the mid point for us.  And it has been hot, all of the sudden.  June was very pleasant until the last week, and then the heat and humidity rushed in. We are forecast to top 100 again today, which will be, I think, the 6th day over 100 in the last two weeks.

Fortunately, corn likes the heat.  I hope to pick my first ears by the end of this week.  We have planted three harvests.  The first has ears, the second is about 3' tall, and we planted the third yesterday.

We are still having just enough rain to keep us out of drought, so the flowers are looking pretty good.  Here is a nice bed of daisies.  Many of my perennials have not returned this year, including bee balm, which this bed use to be full of.  I need to do some serious culling of plants and change what is here.  I have a small redbud tree growing in this bed, which in a few years will change the light significantly.

Memorial Day

The unofficial start of summer is always a good time for gardening.  It is already hot here, but the humidity isn't too oppressive yet.  Today we planted our second round of corn.  The first, planted three weeks ago, is about a foot high now.

Many things are in full bloom, quite early.  My gardenia bushes are bent over with blooms.  Daylilies, coreopsis, yarrow, St. John's wort bush are all blooming.  I even have some crinum lilies blooming.
This lantana came back very early this year, and is enjoying the sun.  The concrete rabbit does not concern the real ones I am seeing on a regular basis.

Here  is asclepias (Butterfly weed) looking nice.  I need to do some serious thinning of lots of plants in this bed.

I am delighted to find that a pair of bluebirds have taken up residence in one of our bird houses.  I have seen bluebirds in the neighborhood, but this is the first time they have nested in our yard.  Such beautiful, graceful birds.  They were in and out of the house today, making me think they may have babies to feed.

And corn, again

Here is a picture of the corn.  There are about fourteen stalks up so far.

This evening I planted a squash and a cucumber plant, both of which I grew from seeds.  I also put three beautiful bright red dianthus plants in the front bed, right next to the sidewalk.  

Corn is up

I planted 18 hills of corn last Monday afternoon.  Yesterday evening I saw about ten small stalks shooting up.  We are having several days of rain, everything is looking healthy.  We fertilized the spring blooming shrubs this weekend, and put out several dozen annuals. 

My other two gardenia bushes have started blooming. 

I have a variety of plants in seed cups, in the southern windows, including cucumber, squash, moon flower, sunflower and more herbs.  Ten tomato plants are in the ground, and I plan to put more in seed cups.  I am doing much more food stuff than I normally do.  Last year I had so much fun growing corn, I just had to do more this year.  I think we will have three patches, each planted two weeks apart.

Happenings

 For several years I have had a small gardenia bush in the back yard.  It is next to the wall, in a very protected place.  Twice I thought drought had killed it, but it survived.  It has never grown much, and never bloomed, until this week.  Today it has two blooms and several buds.  It must have liked the mild winter.

My peonies are budding now.  Usually they have lots of flowers, but it looks like it will just be a few this year.  Perhaps they did not like the mild winter?

This week I planted twelve tomato plants, basil, cilantro and parsley.  I also planted half the bed we have reserved for corn.  I hope to plant the rest of that bed this weekend.  We will also put out annuals this weekend.  Squash, cucumbers and more herbs are growing in seed pots inside.

I am uncertain how I will keep the yard tamed this summer.  Everything is growing far faster than I can manage to work with it.  But, is certainly is nice to have plenty of rain.

Challenges

 My Costa Rican adventure resulted in a torn rotator cuff in my left shoulder.  I had surgery to repair the tear in late February.  My shoulder  and arm were immobilized for six weeks.

As a result, my spring gardening has been little more that looking and dreaming.  I have managed to pull a few weeds, but I have been ordered to do no pushing, pulling or lifting with any resistance for now, and nothing more than a few pounds for the summer.  That means no digging, hoeing or using the lawn mower.

My yard is showing the effects.  It is rather sad.  But, I have had a couple of surprises.  This beautiful white iris came up this week.  It is a lone one, but perfect.  I also have lovely purple flag iris near the white one.  I like this color combination, and might plan more purple and white in that bed.

Before I injured myself, we dug up part of the front yard and put in two beds of liriope.  It is doing pretty well.  I had planned to have walking paths between them, but we have decided to plant vegetables there.  I am going to try corn again this year.  Last year my eight plants were wonderful.  Unfortunately my tomatoes were a failure last year.  They were in a new bed and the soil was not good.  I have 12 tomato plants growing in seed cups in southern windows.  They can go out soon.

We (that is an editorial we, I just watched) cleaned out the fish pond last weekend, and re-filled it with rain water from the rain barrels.  There were about a dozen good size fish in the pond.  I also found one frog.  They seem happy in the clean home.  In the fall we had thinned out the plant life, so the pond is looking great.

As extreme as I get

I am not into "extreme" anything, and certainly not sports. My style is more moderate hikes and long walks. But, we just could not resist a Zip Line through the rain forest canopy.

I did not know much about zip lining, other than it is a fast ride on a cable. So, let me describe it. To begin with, you need to have an elaborate harness. This consists of a wide belt around your waist. Attached are two more harnesses, one for each thigh. The three are joined by a large steel buckle. The staff begins by putting you in the harness. They then fit you with a helmet and hook a large pulley, which has handles on each side, to the side of your harness, and hand you a ratty pair of work gloves. Ours were those blue and grey kind that you see in the hardware store.

After our group (there were 8 of us) were all fitted out, we road a tram about a mile up the mountain. At the first platform we were at an elevation of about 3500' . It was a nice, slow ride up through the canopy. We then got off on the platform where the guides gave us a brief instruction on how to ride the zip line. Here is how it works. You step up on a riser and the guide takes the pulley off your belt and hooks it onto the cable. He then hooks it to the large buckle on your harness and tells you to 'sit down' and to hold onto the handles on your pulley. At this point you are basically on your back, hooked to the cable and supported by the harness. Yup, you are hanging in the air by harnesses around your waist and thighs holding onto the pulley. They tell you to cross your ankles and tuck your legs up, so you are in a fetal position. Then you are given a push and off you go! Whee! As you get near the next platform, one of the guides shakes the cable, letting you know to brake. You brake by stretching out your legs and gently moving the pulling back and forth. They have a rope attached to the cable that 'catches' you, and then the guide pulls you onto the platform. You do a very short 'practice' run, but then they put you on the first cable so quickly you don't have time to think about chickening out. After that you have one chance to quit. No one in our group did.

There are 8 lines. The shortest is 120 ft and the longest over 2300 ft. I don't actually know how fast you go, but I have read that it is up to 50mph. It is advertised that you can see birds and animals, but you can't really. You are moving so fast that you can't observes much of anything except the tree tops. On the next to the last line, it goes pretty low, so that you are going through a cut in the trees, almost like being in a tree tunnel.

I have never done anything that made my heart race so much. It was a great experience. I'm not sure I would do another zip line, but I might.